Much of the discourse surrounding the impacts of mega-events uses the term
‘legacy’ to discuss what happens due to, and after, the hosting of a mega-event.
Gold and Gold (2009) provide a history of the term ‘legacy’ in the Olympic Games, identifying that it first appeared in Olympic bid documents for the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games. The first modern Olympics had little concern regarding legacy, aside from the experience that the organisers gained in sports administration. It was not until White City Stadium was built for London’s hosting of the 1908 Olympic Games that there was an obvious legacy from a Games. While the term ‘legacy’ was used during the bids for the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games, the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles was the first to use the term on a consistent basis. Yet, as the two subsequent Olympic Games were hosted in non-English-speaking nations, the term was not utilised in either the 1988 Seoul or the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games. When the Games returned to the English-speaking world, in Atlanta in 1996, the term
‘legacy’ became more prominent (Gold and Gold, 2009; Andranovich and Burbank, 2011).
As will be demonstrated in this chapter, the impacts of mega-events are not necessarily always positive for a host. It is perhaps for this reason that the IOC has sought to marry the legacy narrative with hosting, to justify the ever-increasing budgets required to host such an event (Chalip, 2014; MacRury,
2015). The IOC Charter states that the role of the IOC is to ‘promote a positive legacy from the Olympic Games to the host cities and host countries’ (IOC, 2014:17), yet it is less clear about its own definition of ‘legacy’. A 2003 IOC International Symposium sought to clarify the definition of legacy but was forced to conclude that the different cultures and languages of the various contributors resulted in several different definitions being used (de Moragas et al., 2003). Indeed, during the 2003 IOC International Symposium, six different authors acknowledged the lack of a clear definition and instead proposed their own definition to be used for the purposes of that specific paper (Barney, 2003;
Chappellet, 2003; Essex and Chalkley, 2003; Hiller, 2003; McCloy, 2003;
Roche, 2003).
In the years since the symposium, the use of the term legacy has multiplied significantly, and so has the academic understanding of the definition. A key driver of the use of legacy is Preuss, whose 2007 definition is the most widely used. Preuss identified six dimensions that make up a definition of legacy (Preuss, 2007:210-211):
1) Legacy continues beyond the event itself. While legacy may originate from structures constructed prior to the event, most legacy occurs from changes that occur during or after the event.
2) As the environmental factors change, new opportunities for legacy are derived.
3) Legacy impacts different groups of stakeholders in different ways.
The same action may bring benefits to one group but negatively impact another.
4) Legacy may be tangible or intangible.
5) Legacy will typically be restricted to the host area but may permeate beyond the immediate region.
6) Legacy may be unintentional; negative impacts are unlikely to be planned.
As can be seen, the definition of legacy is rather wide-ranging and can be used to fit a number of scenarios.
A key criticism of legacy, which will be further demonstrated later in this chapter, is that many hosts expect a positive legacy to occur naturally (Grix et al., 2017) when this is unlikely to be the case. Indeed, as per Preuss’s (2015:5) definition, legacy can lead to negative impacts as well as positive. Chalip (2014) notes further issues inherent with the idea of legacy. If legacy is expected to occur as part of hosting, then it is likely to be the responsibility of an organising committee that a) is focused on organising the event, and b) is likely to be disbanded after the event occurs.
Chalip has, instead, been a proponent of the idea of ‘leverage’. Whereas legacy focuses on the outcomes of an event, that is, what occurs after the event has taken place, leverage has a different emphasis. Rather, leverage studies the strategies that are put in place by the host organisations to achieve a particular objective (Chalip, 2006). As Chalip (2014) argues, if legacy is unplanned, it may not be immediately obvious what led to this legacy occurring. This is where leverage differs from legacy; if hosts implement specific strategies and tactics, these can be evaluated to measure their
effects. Those strategies that are successful can then be adopted and adapted by future hosts who are seeking to achieve similar positive outcomes.
The term ‘legacy’ dominates the narrative, both from an academic and practical point of view. Leverage is a more recent concept that first became considered at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. Rather than relying on the Olympic Games to generate positive outcomes automatically for Sydney and Australia as a whole, a series of strategies was put in place to ensure that the Games delivered positive benefits (Chalip, 2002). These strategies sought to leverage the Games to boost Australia’s tourism. In the years since, a number of studies have demonstrated how other nations have sought to leverage the hosting of mega-events for positive benefits, such as Germany’s hosting of the 2006 World Cup (Grix, 2012), the 2010 South Africa World Cup (Knott et al., 2015), and Qatar 2022 (Brannagan and Giulianotti, 2014).
This first section has established the key differences between the terms
‘leverage’ and ‘legacy’. This research will be using the concept of leverage rather than legacy. It is not seeking to view the unplanned outcomes of bidding.
Instead, this study is investigating the plans that bidders have put in place to leverage positive benefits for the nation or city. However, there is scant literature focusing on the ways that cities have leveraged an Olympic bid for positive benefits. Therefore, this literature review will now consider the ways that leverage has been applied to the hosting of mega-events and will introduce the theoretical framework that will be used for this research.